1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in the way vehicles are moved sideways and, more particularly, to apparatus for moving a vehicle laterally of its wheel base over a floor surface.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In automobile body and paint shops, it is often necessary to place a vehicle in a specific location, such as in a paint booth for spray painting the exterior surface of the vehicle. Generally, an automobile body and paint shop has two or more longitudinally extending lanes, and the vehicles are moved successively into stationary positions at work stations along the lanes. While at the work stations, work is performed on the vehicles, such as body work, scraping of paint from the vehicle surface and the like.
At certain times, it is desirable and sometimes necessary to move a vehicle from one lane into an adjacent lane so that the vehicle can be advanced to another work station, such as a paint booth. To move the vehicle into the other lane when there is no room to maneuver, it is necessary to completely move the vehicles behind or in front of the vehicle to be moved, and this requires several drivers and considerable time and effort to effect the move itself.
While attempts have been made to provide structures for accomplishing sideways movement of a vehicle in longitudinally extending lanes of the type described, such structures have generally been extremely complex in construction and bulky to assemble and use. They have also required a considerable amount of space and are expensive to produce and maintain. Moreover, such structures are permanently put into place so that the floor surface on which the structures are mounted have a limited use.
Because of the foregoing disadvantages, the structures of the type described are not satisfactory and a need has continued to exist for an improved apparatus for accomplishing sideways movement of vehicles in adjacent vehicle lanes. The present invention satisfies this need as hereinafter described.